Rotating DMs

[Chester]

Hello Playground! Happy All Saint's Day! :smallbiggrin:

If any of you have read my posts before, you might know that my group is on a rotating DM schedule. We've been doing this for over two years. However, I was wondering if any of you face the same problems with this system that I do, and perhaps can offer advice / ideas / general commiserations for dealing with it.

I can't speak for everyone in the group, but I really am tired of DMing. For our previous campaign, we established some overarching story lines that got really annoying to coordinate. This time around, we're not going epic; we're generally trying to go with smaller adventures, which does take some of the pressure off. Plus, our last campaign was "neutral" (well, I was evil, they were neutral, but we were all pretty selfish and despicable characters), but as we're playing a "good" campaign this time around, it lends itself better to smaller adventures motivated by general heroics rather than greed.

But I digress. I'm still finding some difficulties with being a rotating DM. Namely:

1. Having to play my PC is a pain in the neck while DMing. When I previously played a Dread Necromancer, the answer was simple: PC is off doing Necromancery things, like making undead, so I could just not include him in the adventure. Or, it was easy as a spellcaster, since other PCs could just ask me to cast something, and I'd go with that. Now, however, I'm the party tank (Warforged melee, two-handed weapon). I really can't pull him from the game, and it's not really practical for PC's to worry about their characters and my character.

2. The previous issue elicits another issue: "fear" (for lack of a better word) of killing my own PC. The last guy to DM almost did it to himself. However, I find myself holding back with a challenge when my PC plays, because a) I don't want to be the jackass who kills his own PC, and b) it feels unfair when another PC dies while I'm DMing and playing my own character. Granted, I want to create a challenge without overwhelming the party--I'd rather PCs die from their own stupidity rather than a ridiculously hard encounter, and sometimes a series of unfortunate die rolls hurt--but there's always that question of making an encounter fair on an extra level.

3. Fairness issues arise with treasure as well. Last time I was DM, I just gave a general reward of gold to be divided evenly--but that's boring. Random treasures are cool to an extent, but I also like to leave things that specific characters might like. In that sense, I often shortchange myself because I feel like it's kind of lame to give myself something.

Anyway....just wondering how some of you deal with the inevitable issues of rotating DMs. We've discussed getting someone else as a "full time DM," but we actually do like the dynamic that we already have. So, constructive feedback or commiseration is welcome.

[Larrx]

Have you considered structuring the campaign around an organization that the PCs are a part of? It should be much easier to slot different characters into and out of the current party that way, so from objective to objective (and DM to DM) the roster could change without disrupting the narrative too much. This could help avoid the terribly awkward situation of having to run for yourself.

[nedz]

I've been doing this for a while in one group I play/DM in.


The campaign is structured to be episodic. First game was military-fantasy and mission based, current game is island hopping.
We do not have DMPCs. In the first game the current DM's character simply wasn't assigned to the mission, in the current one - well someone has to look after the boat. This does mean that we can't run ship-in-a-bottle type scenarios, well we haven't figured out how to do that as yet.
The current DM's character gets average xp of the active characters. In the first game: they were on another mission, in the current one we have party wide xp (well actually we just decide when people level).
Treasure allocation is difficult. In the first game the inactive PC got the average wealth of the rest of the party - this was fluffed as being from the alternate mission. In the current game this is unresolved, though the party is only 3rd level. The issue comes with special stuff for which we don't have an answer.

2. above covers your points 1. and 2.

Your 3rd point is tricky and I don't have an answer, some of the issues we faced in the first game were:

When DMing I gave out a free feat as a reward, obviously since my character wasn't there I didn't get this.
Between missions everyone got to trade at the market, so inactive PCs could 'buy' looted items at half price; but they couldn't get first pick.
Another DM gave out a cursed item. Since he was playing the party Wizard he got to identify the item and got hit with the curse. This was hilarious: I was DMing, but I just kept track of the days and delayed the start of the next mission until the shenanigans were resolved. We had to break our own no DMPC rule, but since the curse made him an NPC this worked out OK.

[prufock]

Guild style is the way to go. Treasure is returned to the guild, the guild authorities dole it out as necessary or give you gold for it. Different missions can have different people assigned.

Finally, stop using xp. Just agree on a leveling schedule. Maybe everybody DMs one game at each level. All character in a mission are the same level.

[Chester]

Have you considered structuring the campaign around an organization that the PCs are a part of? It should be much easier to slot different characters into and out of the current party that way, so from objective to objective (and DM to DM) the roster could change without disrupting the narrative too much.


We do not have DMPCs. In the first game the current DM's character simply wasn't assigned to the mission, in the current one - well someone has to look after the boat. This does mean that we can't run ship-in-a-bottle type scenarios, well we haven't figured out how to do that as yet.


Guild style is the way to go. Treasure is returned to the guild, the guild authorities dole it out as necessary or give you gold for it. Different missions can have different people assigned.

Yes, I used to do that with my previous character. It worked well then. This time around it is harder to justify not having the primary combatant part of any mission. However, the guild idea is a good one.


Finally, stop using xp. Just agree on a leveling schedule. Maybe everybody DMs one game at each level. All character in a mission are the same level.

We actually did that with our last campaign. However, issues arose with crafting and creating undead. This time around, we have an Artificer who needs to burn XP to make things, and a Psion who crafts stuff (but I don't quite know exactly what). So, we decided to do XP. We're actually leveling more quickly. That being said, leveling was never an issue.

Again . . . the guild is a good idea. As of now, we're pretty well known in the town. We could actually form our own guild.

[Florian]

If you switch to leveling up by reaching story milestones, then it doesn't make sense anymore to stick with crafting stuff costing xp. Just drop that, too.

[nedz]

If it's just a meatshield they are lacking: assign an NPC to the party.

Have one of the players run it in combat, subject to a DM veto, and you're good.

[TheCorsairMalac]

It's been a long time since I had a DM rotation, and it wasn't very successful, but I learned a lot from it.

We never found a way to get rid of bias, so we opted to have the DM's character be absent while he was DMing. Usually we just made excuses like your dread necromancer. Why can you not pull your character from the game? I would think you could just make easier--or different--challenges for the group when they're short their front line fighter. A stealth or magic adventure might work.

Whatever you decide to do, removing yourself from the adventure for a day is an attractive option. It makes the other problems disappear.

[Deadasadoor]

My group runs with this in our main campaign. It went well enough. We're currently playing through the sequel to the original campaign. Like the others said, a sort of guild system works well. One thing that may not have been stated is that it works really well for people who want to try lots of different characters, if it doesn't harm the narrative too much. I think I played about 5 or 6 different characters over the course of that campaign and got to change it up every so often.

Treasure was definitely an issue. The one guy in our group who kept one constant character ended up with a massive wealth and item advantage over the other PCs. It didn't affect us horribly, but it was still annoying when all of the wealth was concentrated in one place. One of the other DM's liked to hand out magic items like candy, and the previously mentioned player ended up with multiple artifacts.

Running an overarching plot can be fairly interesting with communication between DMs. With everyone contributing to the story you can build something really awesome.

[atemu1234]

I've never been a fan of rotating DMing, myself, simply because I've invested a lot of time and effort into my campaigns that no one else can or should be familiar with. Not that my players really want to DM.


It's been a long time since I had a DM rotation, and it wasn't very successful, but I learned a lot from it.

We never found a way to get rid of bias, so we opted to have the DM's character be absent while he was DMing. Usually we just made excuses like your dread necromancer. Why can you not pull your character from the game? I would think you could just make easier--or different--challenges for the group when they're short their front line fighter. A stealth or magic adventure might work.

Whatever you decide to do, removing yourself from the adventure for a day is an attractive option. It makes the other problems disappear.

This is the smartest option.

[Yahzi]

Like everyone else, our rotating DM game meant the DM's player stayed on the boat during his adventure.

It was all low level, so treasure and levels weren't terribly out of whack; although, being evil, I did cooperate with another player to rob the rest of the party. The DM at the time was really annoyed that the rest of the party failed to catch on (because we were stealing his gold too!). When it was time to pass to the next DM, he told her about the plot (he had to, for continuity), and she kept it going despite having also lost all of her treasure too. So, you know, we had pretty good DMs.

I wound up getting murdered by my co-conspirator when he assassinated the entire group and absconded with the loot. It was the end of the campaign, but for an evil campaign it was an awful lot of fun.

[Grod_The_Giant]

1. Having to play my PC is a pain in the neck while DMing.
If your group doesn't want to go without their melee, have someone play him, or at least give orders. Maybe work out a reciprocal deal, where you take their character when they DM.


2. The previous issue elicits another issue: "fear" (for lack of a better word) of killing my own PC.
Not sure what to say here... Don't worry so much? Handing your character off will probably also help here.


3. Fairness issues arise with treasure as well.
Don't give yourself anything special; as long as other DMs have similar treasure policies it should even out.